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Politics : Sioux Nation -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: geode00 who wrote (95632)	1/15/2007 11:02:20 PM
From: SiouxPal	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 361421

Maybe now we will work on all of those things.

To: geode00 who wrote (95632)	1/15/2007 11:06:41 PM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 361421

Major investment bank issues warning on strike against Iran rawstory.com Warning that investors might be "in for a shock," a major investment bank has told the financial community that a preemptive strike by Israel with American backing could hit Iran's nuclear program, RAW STORY has learned. The banking division of ING Group released a memo on Jan. 9 entitled "Attacking Iran: The market impact of a surprise Israeli strike on its nuclear facilities." ING is a global financial services company of Dutch origin that includes banking, insurance, and other divisions. The report was authored by Charles Robinson, the Chief Economist for Emerging Europe, Middle East, and Africa. He also authored an update in ING's daily update, Prophet, that further underscored the bank's perception of the risks of an attack. ING's Robertson admitted that an attack on Iran was "high impact, if low probability," but explained some of the reasons why a strike might go forward. The Jan. 9 dispatch, describes Israel as "not prepared to accept the same doctrine of ‘mutually assured destruction’ that kept the peace during the Cold War. Israel is adamant that this is not an option for such a geographically small country....So if Israel is convinced Iran is aiming to develop a nuclear weapon, it must presumably act at some point." Sketching out the time line for an attack, Robertson says that "we can be fairly sure that if Israel is going to act, it will be keen to do so while Bush and Cheney are in the White House." Robertson suggests a February-March 2007 timeframe for several reasons. First, there is a comparable situation to Israel's strike on Iraq's nuclear program in 1981, including Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's political troubles within Israel. Second, late February will see Iran's deadline to comply with UN Security Council Resolution 1737, and Israel could use a failure of Iran and the UN to follow through as justification for a strike. Finally, greater US military presence in the region at that time could be seen by Israel as the protection from retaliation that it needs. In his Jan. 15 update, Robertson points to a political reason that could make the assault more likely – personnel changes in the Bush administration may have sidelined opponents of attacking Iran. Preisdent Bush recently removed General John Abizaid as commander of US forces in the Middle East and John Negroponte as Director of National Intelligence, both of whom have said attacking Iran is not a priority or the right move at this time. The deployment of Patriot missile batteries, highlighted in President Bush's recent White House speech on America's Iraq policy, also pointed to a need to defend against Iranian missiles. The ING memo was first sent to RAW STORY as an anonymous tip and confirmed Monday by staff in the bank's emerging markets office, who passed along the Jan. 15 update. The full PDF documents can be downloaded at this link for the Jan. 9 report, and this link for the Jan. 15 update. A screenshot of the first page is provided below.

To: geode00 who wrote (95632)	1/15/2007 11:11:46 PM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 361421

seattlepi.nwsource.com

To: geode00 who wrote (95632)	1/17/2007 5:03:32 AM
From: stockman_scott	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 361421

Aux Barricades! _____________________________________________________________ By MAUREEN DOWD Op-Ed Columnist The New York Times January 17, 2007 Being president can be really, really hard. “Sometimes you’re the commander in chief,” W. explained to Scott Pelley on “60 Minutes.” “Sometimes you’re the educator in chief, and a lot of times you’re both when it comes to war.” President Bush has been dutifully making the rounds of TV news shows, trying to make the case that victory in Iraq is “doable.” He thinks the public will support the Surge if he can simply illuminate a few things that we may have been too thick to understand. For instance, he says he needs to “explain to people that what happens in the Middle East will affect the future of this country.” Yes, Mr. President, we get it. He also told Jim Lehrer last night that in 20 years, radical Shiites could be warring with radical Sunnis and Middle Eastern oil could fall into the hands of radicals, who might also get weapons of mass destruction. So after scaring Americans into backing the Sack of Iraq by warning that radicals could get W.M.D., now he’s trying to scare Americans into supporting the Surge in Iraq by warning that radicals could get W.M.D. So many deaths, so little progress. It’s unnerving to be tutored by an educator in chief who is himself being tutored. The president elucidating the Iraqi insurgency for us is learning about the Algerian insurgency from the man who failed to quell the Vietcong insurgency. During his “60 Minutes” interview, Mr. Bush mentioned that he was reading Alistair Horne’s classic history, “A Savage War of Peace,” about why the French suffered a colonial disaster in a guerrilla war against Muslims in Algiers from 1954 to 1962. The book was recommended to W. by Henry Kissinger, who is working on an official biography of himself with Mr. Horne. Mr. Horne recalled that Dr. Kissinger told him: “The president’s one of my best students. He reads all the books I send him.” The author asked the president’s foreign affairs adviser if W. ever wrote any essays on the books. “Henry just laughed,” Mr. Horne said. It seems far too late for Mr. Bush to begin studying about counterinsurgency now that Iraq has cratered into civil war. Can’t someone get the president a copy of “Gone With the Wind”? Maybe it was inevitable, once W. started reading Camus’s “L’Etranger,” set in Algeria, that he would move on to Mr. Horne. As The Washington Post military correspondent Tom Ricks wrote in November, the Horne book has been an underground best-seller among U.S. military officers for three years, and “Algeria” has become almost a code word among counterinsurgency specialists for the mess in Iraq. The Pentagon screened the 1966 movie “The Battle of Algiers” in 2003, but the commander in chief must have missed it. I asked Mr. Horne, who was at his home in a small village outside Oxford, England, what the president could learn from his book. “The depressing problem of getting entangled in the Muslim world,” he replied. “Algeria was a thoroughly bloodthirsty war that ended horribly and cost the lives of about 20,000 Frenchmen and a million Algerians. There was a terrible civil war. ...De Gaulle ended up giving literally everything away and left without his pants.” President de Gaulle had all the same misconceptions as W., that his prestige could persuade the Muslims to accept his terms; that the guerrillas would recognize military defeat and accept sensible compromise; and that, as Mr. Horne writes, “time would wait while he found the correct formula and then imposed peace with it.” Mr. Horne also sees sad parallels in the torture issue: “The French had experience under the Nazis in the occupation and practiced methods the Germans used in Algeria and extracted information that helped them win the Battle of Algiers. But in the long run it lost the war, because it caused such revulsion in France when the news came out, and there was huge opposition to the war from Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir.” In May 2005, Mr. Horne gave a copy of his book to Rummy, with passages about torture underlined. “I got a savage letter back from him,” the author said. The best thing now, he said, is to try to “get around the mullahs” and “get non-Christian forces in there as quickly as possible, mercenaries. As Henry said the other day, if only we had two brigades of Gurkhas to send to Baghdad.” Meanwhile, maybe W. should move on to reading Sartre. “No Exit,” perhaps.

To: geode00 who wrote (95632)	1/19/2007 1:45:42 AM
From: stockman_scott	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 361421

Methodist ministers launch petition to stop Bush library from going to SMU By Angela K. Brown, Canadian Press Published: Friday, January 19, 2007 DALLAS (AP) - A group of Methodist ministers from across the United States launched an online petition Thursday urging Southern Methodist University to stop trying to land George W. Bush's presidential library. The petition, on a newly created website, www.protectsmu.org, says that "as United Methodists, we believe that the linking of his presidency with a university bearing the Methodist name is utterly inappropriate." "Methodists have a long history of social conscience, so questions about the conduct of this president are very concerning," said one of the petition's organizers, Rev. Andrew Weaver of New York, who graduated from SMU's Perkins School of Theology. Brad Cheves, SMU's vice-president for external affairs and development, said Thursday that the Methodist church is diverse in its membership and opinions and that those involved with the petition reflect only one view. "We believe the vast majority of the Methodist membership, university and community support the library and that it will benefit the faculty, students and community for generations to come," Cheves said. SMU emerged as the apparent winner in the library competition last month when the site selection committee said it was entering into further discussions with just SMU, the 11,000-student, private university which is the alma mater of Bush's wife, Laura. The Bushes are Methodists. Some SMU professors have opposed Bush's foreign policy, mainly the war in Iraq. Some faculty members also have complained that the library complex's think tank dedicated to the philosophy of the Bush administration would hurt the school's reputation. But at a faculty meeting Wednesday, SMU president Gerald Turner said those fears were unfounded. He said among the library's benefits were increasing the school's visibility and spurring economic development in the city. The project will be financed with a private fund drive aimed at raising at least US$200 million. While SMU's president said his university' exclusive talks with the selection committee would resume in a few days, the other finalists are Baylor University in Waco, Texas, and the University of Dallas. A decision is expected in a few months. © The Canadian Press 2007 canada.com